Wheeler says she appreciates the hard work from election volunteers and county election officials are working to optimize the polling process for the future. (Steve Burns, WTIU/WFIU News)
Voters across Monroe County on Election Day faced extended wait times and delayed communication.
Monroe County election officials say polling places experienced a shortage of paper ballots.
Election Supervisor Karen Wheeler says the county did what they could to prepare, but many of the issues were unexpected.
“We did our best calculations and then added to that number, because we knew it was going to be a big election, we just didn’t know how big it was going to be,” she says.
Wheeler says she placed an order for paper ballots from a Texas based company nearly three weeks ahead of time based on election history and active voters.
But this year, Monroe County had higher turnout than even the 2016 Presidential election. Wheeler says the county saw over 27,000 voters on Election Day and more than 50,000 voters total.
Precincts across the county also dealt with electronic polling book issues, which Wheeler says outside vendors were able to resolve within the day.
A judge later called for voting hours to be extended by one hour in Monroe County to compensate for the delays.
Wheeler says election officials were notified less than an hour beforehand, which made notifying other precincts quickly a difficult task. She says a lack of space in polling facilities and shortage of volunteers created the biggest challenge this election season.
"That makes it much more difficult to deal with that," she says. "So on our side, we really need to have some changes and some ability to increase our space to be able to continue on, for instance for presidential in 2020.”
Wheeler says she appreciates the hard work from election volunteers and county election officials are working to optimize the polling process for the future.
